Not Synth For Work

So today in the "it was cheap so why not" category, I found a Roland JV-880 rackmount synth module with a dead display.

And other than the sticky adhesive stuck to the top of the unit, this was the only fault with it. Lucky days!

Feeling Powerless

So I was about to do a little bit of video editing when I noticed that my Wintendo wasn't responding to the power button. You know, the one that's usually supposed to turn it on. This wasn't a particular surprise to me as the power button had been somewhat flaky in the past, often requiring multiple pokes, but this time it was quite solidly dead.

I had a poke around inside, and as per usual, the first thing we must do is to check if there's even any power making it to the motherboard. So the multimeter comes out to measure what's on the +5Vsb pin.

Well that would explain it. I guess it was the power supply going soft, and now the 5Vsb rail has completely collapsed.

Except hang on, something else isn't right.

Right, false alarm, it's just the UPS needing new batteries.

Yup, that fixed it.

Anyway, let's install this new power supply that I bought before figuring this out.

And while we're at it, a new CPU cooler probably wouldn't be the worst idea, since I've just been using the basic boxed Intel heatsink for the past 13 years.

That poor assassin, it must be lonely not having any peers.

And, you know, since I'm in this deep...

Hmm, this might have gotten slightly out of hand. Click below to read on.

Groove V

It's time to embark on another project, and this time most of the work won't be done by me. I do not have the patience and free time to engage in an entire re-roof by myself.

I do, however, have the patience to pre-paint some v-groove soffit boards, as some of the existing ones are water damaged, and it's way easier to paint them before installation rather than after.

First up, the v-groove boards.

As for the paint, I've still got half a bucket left over from when I ripped the vinyl siding off the front of my house.

And needless to say, I'm glad I have a paint stirring attachment for my drill.

The first coat goes on as usual.

And no matter what it says on the bucket, paint never covers in just one coat. So, on goes a second, and after it dries it looks pretty good.

An hour down on the ground painting these on sawhorses sure beats spending who knows how long up on a ladder trying to paint them upside-down.

A Vegetative State

It's giardiniera time again.

Not much to report for this batch, except that I ran out of bay leaves and so one jar is without, and curiously two jars failed to seal properly. One was still holding a vacuum but with the lid not sucked down nearly as tight as it should be, and the other leaked down to atmospheric pressure completely.

I think the one that leaked down completely is probably the one that fell over sideways in the pot when I was pulling them out after canning, but I'm not 100% sure about the other. Either way those two go in the fridge while the rest go in the cupboard for me to nibble on over the next 6-ish months.

Getting Toned

The Yamaha TG33 is a desktop synth module, which the big Y prefers to call a "tone generator" for reasons beyond human comprehension. It's basically the sound engine from the SY22 with a little added spice and no keyboard. I picked one up from the land of the rising sun with the promise that it was fully functional. This was almost, but not quite, an accurate description of its condition.

How so? Click the video to find out!

With that bit of fish-exorcism dealt with, it still needed a bit of cleaning, thanks to the decades of dust that had made it between the LCD and the protective window it sits behind. It was apparently in a bit of a dusty environment, as evidenced by the volume knob.

So yes, this dust needs to be evicted.

Thankfully it wasn't stuck on or anything, so it was pretty simple to brush away once I managed to disassemble the entire module just to get at this part.

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to just replace this LCD module at some point. The viewing angle is awful and the backlight is best described as just "a suggestion of illumination", but that's a problem for future-me. Present-me is just happy that I'm not looking through a bunch of dust to see what's on the screen.

And last but not least, this can't be a desktop module if it doesn't sit properly on a desktop, so let's give it some grippy feet.

And that'll wrap things up for this one. Another job well done.

Raising the Stakes

And turning up the heat! Today's special guest is the Boss DR-550, harkening back to the heady days of the early 1990s.

It naturally arrived in an unserviceable condition, which naturally I rectified.

One thing I didn't cover in the video was repairing the heat-staked posts that hold the copper foil shielding to the inside of the case.

Or at least should be holding the copper foil to the inside of the case. They're these little plastic nubbins, 6 in total, that go through a matching set of holes in the shielding and then get melted down to form a plastic rivet of sorts.

But as you might well imagine, that little melted head of plastic doesn't last forever, especially when the unit is subject to disassembly.

But luckily I have a 3d pen, and so I can rebuild what was once there.

I can glob on a bit of melted ABS-compatible plastic, ASA in this case, and then squish it flat to reproduce the original rivet.

It's a little bit tricky, though. The plastic needs to be pretty hot to melt into the remains of the post, and it needs to be squished down fairly flat with a suitable tool; I used the blunt bottom end of a metal x-acto knife holder for this task.

And one thing I didn't count on was the 3d pen having a hard time reaching into corners, particularly the back corner (not shown) where there's a screw post that hides the heat stake rivet and makes for a very tight fit with the 3d pen. I was only partially successful at repairing those ones, but luckily it only really needs to be mostly held in place, so it's fine.

So how does this drum machine sound, you might ask, now that it's all fixed up? Well, let's just say that this particular device has never been burdened by having to carry the weight of ambition or pretension. It makes drum noises, and it does so on the cheap. But still, it has some charm to it.

Them's The Brakes

Purple Haze is on the work stand today, as the brakes were getting a little worn.

Well ok, maybe a little more than a little worn. The aluminum backing plate isn't supposed to be getting scrubbed away like this.

Though at least being aluminum meant that it didn't cause any damage to the rotors.

From the side view it's pretty plain to see that there's basically no friction material left.

Compared to the new ones which have, let's say, a wee bit more.

Now while I'm in here I'm gonna take the opportunity to swap out one of the caliper bolts. For whatever reason the front brakes on my bikes tend to go out of alignment way more than the rears, and this can take its toll on the bolt heads.

The one on the right has definitely been through enough. It doesn't help that these bolt heads are really shallow, so there's only a tiny amount of metal for the torx bit to grab onto.

Anyway, I- oops, omelette break.

Anyway, I also took the opportunity to swap out the rear pads since they were just right at the edge of the 3mm minimum thickness.

And since I've got the tools out, I might as well use them.

I thought this was going to be it for the bike maintenance this week, but fate had more in store for me. On Friday I was out riding The Stig on my usual morning jaunt and I happened to get a puncture in the rear tire. This is quite a common occurrence but because I run tubeless on this gravel bike, the consequences are that some time later I notice a slightly damp spot on the tire where the sealant had plugged the hole.

Not this time, though. Instead I got a veritable fountain of milky orange-white sealant spraying out and coating the backside of both the bike and me. To its credit, the sealant did eventually seal the puncture, and just in time to keep the wheel barely off the rim, so I could continue my ride and make it home after topping things off with my frame pump.

Since the rear tire was also almost worn through the tread, though, I decided to swap it out for some fresh rubber. Not only that, since the front had finally almost worn down too, I purchased a new front tire and swapped the front to the rear to burn off the rest of its rubber. Given that I built this bike in 2022, I'd say that's a pretty good lifetime for the front tire.

While I was at it, I decided to record a few YouTube Sharts showing the proper technique for getting a tire on and off the rim, and for seating a tubeless tire. There's a lot of people who have done videos on this subject, but usually they're influencers who have more charisma than braincells and so they usually demonstrate inefficient or just plain wrong techniques. Well, now you can learn the right way.

I uploaded all three of these videos back-to-back, and amusingly about 5 minutes after posting, someone replied to the second one to say, and I quote, "I hope people keep their kids far away from you!" which is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. Presumably they didn't like my nail polish, but what's funny is that YouTube just recognized this as solid engagement and now that video has literally 10x the views compared to the other two.

So I guess there really is no such thing as bad publicity.